I Jumped Out That Window a Long Time Ago
by electric.currant
Summary: Any excuse is a good excuse to write snappy '30s dialogue. AU in which hard-nosed-newspaper-editor Cat Grant encounters Supergirl. Red K and noir ensue.
1. Chapter 1

"This is the story of the century and you buffoons are sitting around stuffing your big stupid mugs with hard boiled eggs and waiting for The Shadow to come on. 'Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?' Nuts to hearts! Nuts to men! You're all about to find out what evil lurks in the mind and hands of Cat Grant if you don't get out there and pound the pavement about this dame flying around saving aircraft! I swear I ought to just hire chimpanzees to pound out gibberish on your typewriters, pay them in bananas or whatever it is they eat; they'd deliver the goods accidentally before any of you soft-headed oafs. I want something a good deal better than grainy footage from some joker's hobby Bakelite and anecdotal, second-hand evidence from somebody's spinster aunt. Dismissed."

Throughout this barrage, Cat Grant's elaborate fascinator hat had flopped around in such intricate counterpoint to her gesticulations that Kara Danvers had worried it would bounce clean off. It had not bounced clean off. But Cat Grant had given the feather of same a jaunty toss as she had given a final frustrated wave and retreated to her balcony, leaving her newspaper staff to file out into the bullpen in thoroughly admonished haste. As Kara Danvers situated her pencil behind her ear and prepared to be the caboose in this fast train to nowhere, Miss Grant turned on her brocade Mary Jane.

"Not you, toots," she said as she crooked a finger and proceeded to the patio. Kara followed. "What's the status of the percolator?" she said, pacing once she reached her destination, the hat bobbing more than flopping, perhaps trying to covertly signal to her blazer that the wind was about to pick up, which it did and it ruffled every single ruffle on Kara's blouse but somehow avoided Miss Grant's ascot scarf. Kara opened her mouth to admit she hadn't tended to the broken implement yet, but Cat was talking before she could, as per usual: "On second thought, nix on the java. Bourbon. Stiffer than a Joe Louis uppercut."

Kara reminded herself not to use her augmented speed and precision to comply. The whole thing had her teeth on edge, however. Sure, she probably ought not to have exposed herself by saving that airplane but damn it all her sister had been on it, and she couldn't have borne that. She should have thought of the consequences, thought of how her hard-nosed editor boss would've been vying for the story of it. If only a nip would take the edge off for her extraterrestrial self, too.

Cat Grant sighed or maybe moaned at her first gulp and then,

"And what do you think of this situation, Kiera?"

Kara fidgeted with her brooch.

"I-" She looked at her boss-all challenge and sparkle and glamor and dare and wonder-and suddenly felt proud of her deeds. "I think it's just super." Cat Grant laughed, threw her head back and laughed, almost lost her fascinator and laughed.

"I like that. Super. A super girl, indeed." Gears were turning now in Cat Grant's head. She downed the rest of her drink on her sprint back inside to her desk. Kara followed. Cat soon had her glasses on-a thick, ungainly affair, mismatched to her elegant outfit but endearing in their way-and was immediately typing feverishly. "Kiera. You're a genius. I'm a genius. We're both geniuses, but I'm more of a genius for recognizing genius when I see it," she was saying as her fingers punched at the keys. "You see-" she squinted at the several lines that had appeared. "Nevermind what wisdom I was about to impart." Kara turned to go, but Miss Grant tut tutted at her to stay even as she was plowing along on the idea that had seized her. Click click click click click click ding.

Miss Grant looked up briefly to peruse her waiting assistant-well, officially junior copy editor and coffee girl and unofficially chief cook and bottle washer-and then went back to the click click click click click click ding. And then just a click click click click and mid-sentence, she took off her glasses and stood, marched to Kara. Kara worried again about the hat, especially since she was in range for that feather to tickle her if the thing decided to launch itself off Miss Grant's head.

"You're always politely mealy mouthing something or other about how perhaps you'd like to one day maybe sort of have a byline, if fate permits," she said in a bad approximation of Kara's alleged mealy mouthing. "Well, now's your chance, sister. What we've got to realize here is that the city's shaken up, sensitive. Europe's trying to go to war and now here we are suddenly with some kind of ubermensch-or uberfraulein as it were-on our collective hands that we're going to need to get a handle on sooner rather than later. I've got gumption on my side, of course, but the proletariat might open up better to somebody they could take home to mother. You got me?"

"Not exactly, Miss Grant." Miss Grant rolled her eyes and went to take a drink from her double old-fashioned glass that she realized belatedly was empty.

"Do try to keep up, won't you?" She frowned and jingled the glass in Kara's face. Kara took it and refilled it, and as she was doing so, Miss Grant was on her heels, still talking at her. "What I'm saying is a woman such as I could very well be off putting to a suspicious yet hopeful populace but a woman such as you…" She avoided eye contact as she took the now refilled glass and sipped.

"You want me to… what exactly? Spy for you?"

"Yes, now get to it, Mata Hari."

"I don't even have one veil let alone seven."

"That was Salome, darling." Miss Grant cocked her head and looked at Kara-looked at her ruffles and her tweed and her bulky glasses and her chignon and her pencil behind her ear. "I understand your reticence but a girl's gotta get her foot in the door somewhere, and I need every available ear to the ground. And I have this feeling that your ear will be more valuable than all the corn out back of the Nebraska office." She clicked her tongue. "In fact, you're going to get me an exclusive interview with Supergirl."

"With whom?"

"That's the girl's name. I just named her. Or I'm just naming her." She gestured grandly to her temporarily abandoned typewriter. "Now all we've gotta do is figure out whether some sideshow is missing its strongwoman or if she's something a little more than that-which I suspect she is-and whether she'll be back every time something horrendous attempts to happen. And of course her allegiances, her real name, her hobbies, her love life. You know, the works."

"The works. Got it." They stared at each other. Until Cat Grant was back at her typewriter and looking up briefly, dismissively to bark,

"Chop chop."

Panicking on the roof seemed the best option. Kara was pacing and intermittently floating and then pacing again, chanting to herself all the while, "Oh golly what shall I do now?" In an effort to ground herself, she had focused her extraordinary hearing on a bell choir practicing at a Methodist church 12 blocks away, but that had done her dirty, for she was absently humming along with Ave Maria mid-float when Winn Schott-ink-spotted from being in the print shop, where he was manager, most of the day-appeared in front of her, gaping.

"Oh goodness! What are you doing here?" She said, still floating.

"What am I doing? What are you doing?" He looked at her face and then her feet, which were eighteen inches from the ground. She plopped back down to the concrete.

"Would you believe calisthenics?" she said, wincing.

As it turned out, he did not believe calisthenics, but he was all too eager to hear about her marvelous abilities and other amazing feats she had accomplished or was planning to accomplish. He pieced together disparate stories of her childhood in an orphanage he'd heard through the few years of being her close friend and placed into the gaping holes the new information of her erstwhile alien planet. Thrilling. Even more thrilling, given Cat Grant's interest in publishing accounts of future acts and this ridiculous name she'd decided on, Winn suggested a costume to complete her new public persona. After some gentle but insistent cajoling and several attempts, they came upon one Kara didn't think was hideous, although she did have her misgivings:

"Oughtn't I have a mask? The Shadow wears a mask." Winn, weary from tailoring all evening after printing and fixing things all day, crossed his arms over his sweater-vested chest:

"Nobody trusts anybody in a mask. You don't want to be mistaken for a bank robber."

"I also don't want to be mistaken for Kara Danvers."

"Who'll get close enough to you flying around to do that?"

xxx

It was approximately thirty hours from the demand that Kara deemed it appropriate for an interview. In the meantime, Cat Grant had dubbed her Supergirl in a winning front page spread featuring grainy photos from someone's hobby Bakelite. Also in the meantime Supergirl had appeared in her new outfit twice: once to save a married couple, three kids, and a Siamese cat from a housefire and once to almost botch a train derailment rescue. But there she was, front and center and in the lens of everybody's hobby Bakelite as well as real news cameras. Cat Grant was getting antsy.

"What've you got, Danvers?" she said in response to Kara's soft knock at her office door. She was barreling through her second whiskey, mid-sentence on her typewriter, more disheveled than Kara had ever seen her in her two-year tenure at the Tribune. Kara searched the recesses of her mind and found words that Miss Grant might accommodate. She was also disheveled. She'd been running on sunlight alone since Miss Grant had issued her edict.

"Tonight. Eight pm. The big hill where the teenagers like to park and neck." Miss Grant looked up, narrowed her eyes.

"And what's that supposed to mean? Have you found me some teenager to neck with?"

"Of course not, Miss Grant! But on the other hand we don't exactly know how old Supergirl is and whom she might like to neck with." Miss Grant tore off her reading glasses and jumped out of her chair in one swift movement.

"You did it?!"

"You told me to do it, and I did it." Miss Grant's smile was giant and genuine and she was fervently pacing. She was wearing a pillbox today, securely fastened with an elegant pin, and Kara wasn't as worried about it attacking her if the pacing became more manic.

"Hot dog, Sunny Danvers! I ought to have been telling you to do things for years!"

"In point of fact, you have been telling me to do things for years."

"And boy do you deliver. I'd give you a raise, but I'm not the type of woman to do that sort of thing." She stopped pacing abruptly and turned dramatically. "What shall I wear to this rendezvous?"

"What you've got on looks nice?" Cat Grant rolled her eyes.

"If I had a nickel for every time you put a question mark at the end of a declarative sentence-"

"You're already a rich woman, Miss Grant. And you already look nice."

xxx

Cat Grant was admittedly wary of all this cloak-and-dagger nonsense, but she nevertheless instructed her best photographer, James Olsen, to wear all black and conceal himself in the bushes-after she had tasked him of ridding the area of any necking teenagers.

She had taken Kara Danvers at her word but had changed clothes anyway. She cursed herself for foregoing a hat when the wind blew several strands of hair through her lipstick. It was when she was fiddling around in her glove compartment for a spare hair brooch that she heard a whoosh behind her that couldn't be attributed to the breeze.

She whirled around, shutting the passenger side door of her sedan and leaning on it, looking up about four feet in the air to where a red and blue amalgamation of cheap fabrics had draped themselves in kind of an ok way on Supergirl's lithe body. The body was doing all the work in the ensemble, Cat Grant thought before she could help herself.

"Good evening, Supergirl. Or should I call you…"

"Supergirl is adequate." Kara didn't exactly know what to do with her voice and hair to make her less recognizable. She opted for clinical detachment for the former and her best attempt at Hollywood glamour for the latter. She was also posing like some Olympic figure skater. Surely that would be jarring enough to distract Miss Grant's keen eyes.

Miss Grant, for her part, was attempting to conceal her wonder, masking her face with studiousness and sharpness, squinting at the weird figure before her. She had to play the angles on this and play them right.

"I'm glad to hear it. And glad to know you." She extended a hand for Supergirl to shake. Kara floated down briefly to shake her hand and floated back up again, an extra six inches up, in fact.

"You requested an interview. I assume there will be questions?" Kara said, willing herself not to wince at having placed a question mark at the end of that declarative sentence.

"Where are you from?" Miss Grant said.

"Not here."

"You don't have an accent." Miss Grant squinted harder.

"Not anymore."

"So you've lived here for a while?"

"I hear a siren on the other side of town-"

"If you'd prefer not to answer my-very simple and non-intrusive, so far-questions, why did you agree to an interview in the first place?"

"That siren is still wailing."

"Fine." Cat Grant rolled her eyes, failing in her effort to control her disconcertion. "You've exhibited fantastic strength, speed, and hearing, as well as some kind of freezing breath thing that puts out fires. Also you can fly. Do you have other abilities?" She bit her tongue before she could say, "and where do these abilities come from?" because she would probably get a catalogue easier than she would get anything else. Hedge your bets, cut your losses. She had to play the angles. She pulled out a cigarette from her gold case.

Cat Grant did not receive a verbal answer. Instead, Supergirl lit her cigarette, using the force of her eyes.

"Neat trick," Miss Grant said, awed but trying not to show it. "Got any others?" Kara thought it sounded like a dare.

"I can't read minds or anything like that, if that's what you're implying."

"I'm implying whatever you're inferring, sweetheart." Kara was suddenly angry at the condescending tone but wasn't quite sure on a rebuttal, and Miss Grant saw it all play across her easily read kisser. "Let me be clear, Supergirl," she said with even worse condescension. "I can make you a star quicker than you can say 'Bob's your uncle.'"

"In point of fact, Bob is not my uncle." Kara felt obtuse was the best way to go.

"I don't care who your uncle is-actually I do, but let's leave all that to another interview. Point is, I can do right by you if you do right by me. You get me?"

"Sounds a little like bribery."

"What do you care? You're not the police, and for all I know you're probably not even from this planet. What little pedantic rules are you afraid of breaking when you break the very laws of nature every day by doing all these amazing, wonderful things that you were obviously born to do? I'm not talking corruption. I'm talking a mutually beneficial partnership between a city's guardian angel and an honest newswoman."

Kara balked as much as she considered, and Cat Grant had been antsy all day and was getting antsier by the second. Kara could hear Miss Grant's heart pounding, in fact. And that pulled her toward the considering and away from the balking because-she reasoned-if Miss Grant was nervous maybe it meant she was being genuine rather than exploitative. Miss Grant could no longer endure the thoughtful, open look on Supergirl's face-a look that reminded her of someone but she didn't have the mental agility to place whom because her brain was already doing somersaults about this interview. So Miss Grant said,

"I've been called a lot of dirty names in my time, but patient has hardly been one of them. Are you my girl or aren't you?" They stared at one another. Finally, Supergirl struck a different Olympic figure skater pose and said,

"I'm your girl, Miss Grant. But remember, I'm National City's girl first and foremost."

"Save the flag waving for the inevitable parades. I'm going to ask you again, and you're going to answer me straight: Are you my girl?"

"I'm your girl." Cat smiled, already reveling in her victory:

"Not so hard, was it? Now, logistics: You surely know how to contact me. How should I contact you?"

"You know how to whistle, don't you?"


	2. Chapter 2

_A few months later, Supergirl has been diligently Supergirling-fighting aliens, growing closer to Cat Grant, working with the DEO, etc.-when she unwittingly stumbles upon some Red Kryptonite. We now find our intrepid hero a week into the throes of adverse reactions, base instincts, and ill-thought decisions… [dramatic organ theme music]_

 _xxx_

Cat Grant knew something was off. Or perhaps on. She couldn't tell which, or which was worse.

It wasn't exactly dark in her office: light was filtering in through the Venetian blinds at jarring blue angles. Those blinds had been closed when she'd left two hours ago. And the radio was softly playing some muted trumpet. That hadn't been on when she'd left two hours ago. And certainly when she'd left two hours ago, Supergirl hadn't been draped over her chaise in the smart black jumper version of her regular garish outfit smoking a cigarette looking uncharacteristically bored and sexy.

"Haven't seen you around in a few days," Cat Grant said, throwing her handbag onto the coffee table and leaning against her desk, trying to appear just as bored and sexy although it was just very strange and she could feel just a touch of consternation welling up in her throat. "Thought maybe you were too busy letting criminals walk free."

"You caught wind of that, did you. Figures." Kara-Supergirl, Miss Grant reminded herself-rolled her eyes.

"But that's not why you're here," Miss Grant said, watching, waiting, unaccountably tense.

"You're not a criminal I'm willing to let walk free." She put out her cigarette in a red-lipstick-printed whiskey tumbler that held about three mostly melted ice cubes and the ghost of bourbons past.

"I'm not a criminal at all, in point of fact," Miss Grant said, wondering at the gravel in Supergirl's voice.

"In point of fact, the individual you allege I let walk free was never convicted of anything by any American court. So I suppose it depends on one's definition of criminal." She was still reclining, languid.

"If you're here to debate law, the legal department opens at 8am. So you can be on your way."

"Not so fast," and she was right in front of Cat now in half a whoosh and half a breath. "Your criminality aside, you're not walking out of here."

"And what about you? Are you walking out of here?" Cat said. She should've whispered for their closeness.

"No one's going anywhere," Supergirl said, her hands now on the desk behind Miss Grant, trapping her.

"And I suppose a .32 pistol would be ineffective against you, if I were so inclined," Miss Grant said, sliding her fingers gingerly over its tiny pearl handle in the pocket of her mink coat that she hadn't taken off yet.

"I've never known you to ask a question you didn't already know the answer to," Supergirl said, mostly a sexy growl. Cat Grant paused and looked into Supergirl's eyes, which were dark and twinkling and odd. Supergirl had been weird lately, and Cat didn't know whether this encounter would lead to answers or questions.

"In that case, be a dear and step off me so I can take off this coat and get comfortable for whatever chat you're holding me hostage to have." Supergirl did not step off her. She slipped a finger under the collar of the coat and inched it down Miss Grant's shoulder. "Hold the phone, Supergirl. I don't let just anybody disrobe me."

"Luckily I'm not just anybody," Supergirl said as she continued disrobing her. "In fact, according to your glowing reviews," she paused to yank the coat indecorously the rest of the way off and pitch it toward the divan in a burst of controlled aggression, and Cat Grant could've sworn she saw a flash of red in her eyes. "I'm not anybody at all. I'm little more than a shared fantasy." She pressed even closer now and replaced her hands behind Miss Grant on the desk. "I'm Supergirl," she hissed, close to her face, "a fake name and a fake person, performing amazing feats for peanuts and praise. I'm half surprised you haven't tried to pat my nose and set up a little pillow for me at the foot of your bed." Her voice had grown increasingly heated and low and her breath increasingly wet against Miss Grant's cheek. Miss Grant swallowed to compose herself. She reminded herself this was a woman she trusted and generally had control over.

"To my credit, you're the one who suggested I whistle when I needed you." Supergirl laughed one laugh, which propelled her just slightly away from Miss Grant's body, and finally Cat could take a full breath. The reprieve didn't last long. She blinked, and Supergirl's hands were on her shoulders and her voice was in her ear:

"Well, we've all been young and stupid."

"Yes, and some of us get younger and stupider by the second, it seems," Miss Grant said before she could think better of it. And the hands that had been on her shoulders were now around her throat.

"You're certainly stupider," Supergirl said, squeezing just slightly and then releasing, rubbing her thumbs against the pale flesh. Cat Grant figured if her number was up, she wouldn't go silently.

"This is certainly a contrived little scenario you've got going to convince me you're not the Girl Scout I've reported you to be. I'm not the type to negotiate, but just for kicks, what say you tell me what you want from me and I pretend to throw out some counter-offers, you choose to let whatever the matter is drop, and we both move on with our lives." The hands did not move, just continued caressing one millimeter away from choking. But the face moved from beside her ear to look her in the eye.

"Consider it a professional courtesy. I'm tired of doing everybody's dirty work, and I'd like to tender my resignation."

"Two weeks notice and a written statement, please."

"That's what I figured you'd say. I guess I'll just have to go with Plan B." Before Miss Grant could ask, Supergirl again tightened her grip and said, "Surely you can find a reason to fire me." The grip tightened again, but Miss Grant was able to eek out:

"Please. Find me an employee who doesn't want to murder me, and I'll eat my hat." Supergirl laughed again, that one terrible laugh, and loosened her grip again.

"You're right. You certainly do have a way with people, you arrogant, self-serving, mean-spirited harpy." Cat Grant would've placed actual money on Supergirl's eyes being red. Also the insult stung coming from Kara-Supergirl, she reminded herself again-just a little, at least, but then Supergirl kissed her, mean and with a lot of tongue. And Miss Grant was confused more than anything. When the bombardment let up, she considered,

"Aha. I'm supposed to denounce you as a reprobate. Clever. Clever but ineffectual. I'll be shelving this for future blackmail. In the meantime, take a few days in Catalina, pull yourself together, and get back to your job of saving the city. I know at least three doctors who hand out lithium like Halloween candy-" Supergirl again kissed her, just as hard and unyieldingly, pushing her farther onto her desk. Miss Grant was surprised to find her own hands in Supergirl's hair, effectively pulling her on top of her on the desk. Supergirl pulled up slightly, her eyes flashing probably red.

"Am I to take this as a counter-offer?"

"Take it for what you will." Cat Grant found herself splayed out on the desk suddenly, Supergirl's knees on either side of her hips.

"Tell me I'm fired," Supergirl said, kissing her just below her ear.

"Administrative leave pending review."

"I'll take it, but I hate Catalina."

"There's no accounting for taste."

"It's been my experience that you account for everything."

"You've forgotten to take into account how much younger and stupider I've become recently." And it was Miss Grant who kissed Supergirl this time. She told herself she was keeping Supergirl distracted from murdering her and arched into her body. But then when she opened her eyes and saw Kara's were still closed, serene and soft and fluttering, she realized how ludicrous this all was. Whoever this person was on top of her was not really her friend. She was sick or toasted and would never really do any of these things. She lay back on the desk and pressed a hand to Supergirl's chest.

"Hey." Supergirl's eyes flew open and again flashed red, so very briefly.

"Another counter-offer? The Keys, perhaps?"

"Get me a cigarette, will you?" Supergirl eyed her suspiciously.

"We haven't even gotten to the good part."

"Don't pretend like you know anything about that, sweetheart." Miss Grant gave her chest a light push, and Supergirl slunk off her, as though her body were heavy and slow. But she did as requested, lit two at once, and placed one in Cat's lips, who had righted herself but was still seated on the desk. Supergirl hung back and leaned against the arm of the sofa.

"You gonna tell me why you put on the brakes? Or are you just a tease?"

"Here's the thing, honey," Cat Grant started and then paused, realigned her thoughts. "The two of us have the potential to bring out the best of each other or the worst of each other. It might behoove us to sort out which we're gonna try for before we have some quick, unsatisfying sapphic fling on my desk." Cat knew she'd chosen the wrong words-was 70 percent sure any words she could've chosen would've been wrong-when she saw that red flash again as Supergirl grabbed her by the bicep and manhandled her out to the balcony. Cat was pressed against the railing, Supergirl behind her with her hand now at the back of her neck.

"Get a load of this city, baby. This is how you see it from your high tower, all glittering lights and potential. Potential for stories and money. And then I fly over," she maneuvered Cat's neck so she would look to the sky. "And I'm this beacon. This symbol. This allegory. This benevolent goddess. And you presume-because that's what you do, that's all you ever do-that you have some magnificent insight, some preternatural tie, some control over me. We bring out the best of each other? My left foot! You're a coattail rider from way back, Cat. You wanna know what true power is? It's the power over life and death." And with that, Supergirl shoved Cat over the railing.

Cat didn't have time to think about all the awful things Kara had just said to her. She was too busy screaming. And thinking about all the awful things she'd ever done. And who would look after her sons.

And then Supergirl caught her, seven inches from splat.

"You can take all your counter-offers and put them in your pipe and smoke them, for all I care. I gotta blow. And don't you dare whistle for me." And Supergirl was gone.


End file.
